Wisconsin: The Worst State for African Americans

This story appeared in the February 2015 issue of our magazine. Subscribe to read the full issue online.

I’m one semester away from graduating from the University of Wisconsin. My college experience has been equal parts stressful, harrowing, enlightening, and incredible.

One thing that I am constantly reminded of, though, is how wildly different my childhood and high school experiences have been from those of the vast majority of my peers.

When my friends and I have conversations about our times in high school, I listen to what they have to say, while inside my head I hear a running commentary in a de pressingly contrarian voice.

Every time someone comments about her school band’s trip to France or Mexico, I nod, while quietly lamenting the fact that my school never had a band. Or an orchestra. Or many after-school programs, for that matter.

Every time someone mentions taking French, Latin, and even Swahili foreign language classes in high school, it’s another reminder that we were offered only two years of Spanish at my school. At UW I scrambled through three semesters of German in order to meet graduation requirements.

I don’t mention this because I’m looking for sympathy. It deserves mention because unequal education is an important aspect of our country’s glaring racial disparities. Somehow, the situation is even worse in the state of Wisconsin than in the rest of the nation.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s data for 2013, the gap between black and white students in eighth-grade math was a giant 30.8 percentage points. When it comes time for high school graduation, black kids are almost one-third less likely to make it to the stage.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that children of color face immense barriers to success in key categories of well-being. Black people are less likely to be in school or working, have two-parent homes, delay childbearing, or gain at least an associates degree.

Thirty percent of Wisconsin’s white children live in households below 200 percent of the poverty level, compared with about two-thirds of Wisconsin’s Latino and American Indian kids. For African American kids, the rate is 80 percent.

This is the cold, honest truth we need to face. My senior class in high school started at around 500 people. That number dwindled to 250 by graduation. Whether it was through frustration, apathy, or needing to enter the workforce early to take care of relatives, inner city kids have so many more hoops to jump than their suburban counterparts.

I went to Casimir Pulaski High School on the south side of Milwaukee. One of the most prominent things about my hometown, aside from the breweries and Fonz statues, is the fact that Milwaukee is far and away the most segregated city in America. Business Insider compiled data that shows how Milwaukee is divided along color lines. Blacks live on the north and west side, whites live on the east side and far north, Hispanics live on the south side, and Asians live in a pocket on the north central side of town.

Milwaukee is not only segregated by ethnicity, but also through community investment and economic development.

In a 2013 door-to-door survey conducted by the Social Development Commission at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, many respondents said that lack of employment and education are major barriers to a better life, and keep people in their neighborhoods living in poverty. The people who took the survey lived in central Milwaukee and were predominantly black. That is what makes inequality a race issue, and that is why we need to focus on race.

People will tell you anyone can make it if you are just inspired and motivated. But the reality is that’s just not enough. You can get only so far with motivation. I got where I am today because I was a kid lucky enough to receive help—help that I know for a fact is not available to most students of color.

In ninth grade I was a directionless student. I didn’t know where I was going in my life. Then I got a brochure in the mail from the PEOPLE program—a summer program that brings low-income students of color together from all over Wisconsin. We arrived on the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where we lived in the dorms, took classes, and prepared for higher education. College students served as counselors. I found my voice while at PEOPLE. I got to see that it was possible for someone who came from where I came from to make it to one of the best universities in the world.

When opportunity is there, people will take advantage of it. Take for instance the story of Andre Lee Ellis and the “We Got This” movement, started last summer in Milwaukee. Ellis paid Jermaine, an at-risk kid, $20 to work in the community garden and clean up the neighborhood on Saturdays.

“After the first week he brought five buddies with him,” Ellis said. “The following week ten, then fifteen, then nineteen, and last Saturday forty kids came to work.” Roshaun Collins, a sixth-grader at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School and a member of Ellis’s “We Got This” group since last summer, summed up Ellis’s program by saying, “People where we come from don’t make it far and Mr. Andre is showing us that we can.”

A recent summer jobs program in Chicago called One Summer Plus opened to students in high-violence Chicago public high schools. By the end of the summer, violent-crime arrests fell by 3.95 arrests per 100 youth. Amazingly, the effects were strongest five to eleven months after the program ended, suggesting a lasting impact, at least in the medium-term.

Although inner-city kids respond well if given the opportunity, what little opportunity they have is constantly under attack. Look at the way Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has handled the issue of inner-city poverty. He has issued the largest cuts to education in the history of the state. These cuts included 30 percent to technical colleges, which are crucial for inner-city residents to develop the skills necessary to find great paying work. Walker also ended the Wisconsin covenant program, which offered inner-city youth college scholarships if they met specific requirements. And, Walker is using the inaugural events as he begins his second term as governor of Wisconsin not to fundraise for charities that help Wisconsin youth, like the Boys and Girls Club, but to pay for his own 2016 presidential campaign.

It’s clear that a certain ideology is being pushed and major legislation passed on the false assumption that we are all on a level playing field, and that racial inequality is a thing of the past. You don’t have to look too hard to see that the playing field is not level at all.

What can you do to help end racial inequalities? It’s really important to rally against policies that punish people for being poor, policies that hurt the upward mobility of inner-city blacks. Also, people need to know that kids like me, seeing our position in society, have been conditioned to think that most people who look like us will not succeed. Many young people of color don’t know how they are going to make it in life. If you can reach out personally to someone, you should.

So the next time you hear a group of students talking about foreign language classes, music lessons, and trips abroad, listen to that voice asking, what do kids of color need in order to be lucky enough to experience these things?

The first step to addressing racial inequality is recognizing that it exists.

Miles Brown is a student at the University of Wisconsin majoring in political science and history.

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Comments (9)

As long as you continue to

As long as you continue to equate your life from a group perspective you are going to have trouble relating to others. As long as the victim mentality remains an accepted frame of mind progress will be limited. Racial views will ALWAYS remain as long as there are leaders to take advantage of it. Life is all about inequality. As they say, 'that's life'. Waiting for an enlightened societal moment when it all disappears is a fools errand. A hyphenated nation will always be at odds. Black men are not the only people to come from high-crime urban areas. It is not an excuse, nor should it be for not taking a chance at a better life in a better situation.

BOORAGG_111more than 1 year ago

Great article, please look up

Great article, please look up-The United Negro Business Fund m

R L Presley more than 1 year ago

How about we stop the

How about we stop the government from keeping wages artificially low. Low wage immigration + government subsidy of low wages = artificially low wages. The US government effectively pay foreigners to come to the US and work for low wages.

How welfare distorts migration
An immigrant who has a wife and two kids comes to the US and gets a full-time job at minimum wage. This is a breakdown of the family income of this family.
$13,900/year - wages
$6,000/year - subsidized housing
$4,800/year – SNAP (food stamps)
$5,372/year – Earned Income tax Credit
_________________________________
$30,072 Total
It makes no sense to migrate to the US for a job that pays less than a living wage. You cannot live on $8/hour in New York City. Yet many immigrants work for $8/hour in New York City. Welfare/government assistance distorts migration patterns.

dougmore than 1 year ago

I understand you. Classmates

I understand you. Classmates at my school act like they don't understand the process of learning. I am a straight A stundent and the process takes memorization and patiance

Good speechmore than 1 year ago

8 MILE DETROIT

8 MILE DETROIT

JANEmore than 1 year ago

Well sir, you have a

Well sir, you have a perspective from one frame of mind. Let me give you another viewpoint. I grew up in the north woods of Wisconsin where we had it just about the same. We did have a few perks but it was mainly people making a living wage. But the living wage in the woods is a lot more manageable than the living wage in the city. Cost of living is more, for not much more pay. Given the low income situation and cost of living differences, you don't have the tax collections available for said 'Band Class' or other activities. You are misplacing inequality for poverty. Plain and simple. There is no way to get rid of poverty based segregation. Poor people can't move to nice neighborhoods and well off people aren't going to move to the poverty stricken areas. It is up to each community individually to bring their community out from poverty and provide some outlets for youths. The younger generation has this idea that everything should be handed to them or they should have assistnace every step of the way in life. That is not the case, you are responsible for yourself. I never once looked for a handout, but went into severe debt to finish school and bring myself up. Don't overlook the fact that African, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.... all have the same playing field now. All it takes is an education and to speak somewhat proper English. You are still young yet, but you will figure it out soon enough.

Joe Smore than 2 years ago

Income inequality is all

Income inequality is all about grinding poverty. This is true in high poverty rural areas. Rather than address poverty head on, Republicans and many low information Democrats blame the parents, blame the teachers, blame everything except what is the cause... poverty. People need a livable wage and parents need a big enough incentive that they wont have to get the second or third job, instead they need to be home and have the energy to take care of their childrens needs including helping them study. Schools need enough counselors, social workers and nurses that the mental and physical health of students are met each day. We need experts to sit down with parents, teachers and students to help them formulate a path for success for each student. We need good paying jobs waiting for the students when they graduate, and college waiting for those who want it.

drsolomore than 2 years ago

Miles, I am so proud of you.

Miles, I am so proud of you.

Joan Jachmore than 2 years ago

Thank you for this insight

Thank you for this insight and knowledge.

Justine Hutchinsmore than 2 years ago

Hey, while you’re here...

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